For several years, the longtime International Drive water park has been adding intense thrill rides to its arsenal of slides and rides. But the grand opening of its Blastaway Beach attraction shows the park reaching out to families with small children, says Michael Black, Wet 'n Wild general manager.

"This is the first time we've gone after younger families in about eight or nine years," Black says. "We decided that when we went after it, we'd go after it in a big way."

Blastaway Beach, located immediately to the left after passing through the park entrance, is a large water-play area that centers on a 60-foot-high structure that looks like a sand castle. It's surrounded by 15 water slides of varying intensity, pools on two levels, staircases that are drenched by 160 soakers, pipes and jets, four cannons that spray from up high and a big bucket that periodically dumps gallons of water onto screaming folks. A bell rings when the bucket is about to tip.

"Kids tend to run toward it or to run away," Black says.

It's the first expansion at Wet 'n Wild since 2008, when the Brain Wash raft ride opened. The multimillion-dollar Blastaway Beach, which opened earlier this month, covers 1 acre of the park, and officials think it's the largest water-play area in Florida.

The new area is designed with one entrance to make it easier for parents to corral their young ones.

"The idea is for young families to be able to just walk in, set up, let the kids go play in Blastaway Beach. … They can sit in that area and enjoy the entire day," Black says.

There's room for 500 chairs, 25 percent more than the Kids Park area that Blastaway Beach replaces.

The new slides go from straight shots with slight declines to more elaborate, sometimes corkscrewing tunnels from higher up on the sand castle for more daring kids. All splash down into no more than 1 1/2 feet of water. There are no rafts or floats in the Blastaway Beach area, and there are no height restrictions.

Castle watch

Although Central Florida has a fair share of castles, the new Wet 'n Wild sand castle wasn't inspired by princesses or wizards.

"We did it because we liked the Florida theme. We've gotten good response to that — the natural Florida feel," Black says.

Wet 'n Wild already had a small sand castle, so it was decided to expand upon that theme.

"It's probably five times as large as what we had before," Black says.

The castle and attraction are homegrown, he says.

"Most of these kids-play structures [at water parks] are off the shelf. They are canned play structures. Blastaway Beach is different in that we designed it in-house," Black says.

"We just wanted to make something big and grand for the kids to play with," says Jon Galetta, creative manager. One challenge for the project, which was about a year in the making, was "trying to fit all of this into a small area," he says.

The water cannons near the top of the structure fire off about 5 gallons of water and can spray about 40 feet, he says.

"We can sequence them in a program so they go off randomly or time them to the bucket falling," Galetta says.

The attraction doesn't depend on high-tech as much as more earthly, natural elements.